Elvis Costello says writing about music is the same as dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to do.

Sunday, 27 November 2016

Stuart Skelton and Asher Fisch perform Wagner

Asher
Fisch’s three years as principal conductor with the WA Symphony Orchestra seem to have been building - via a series of Beethoven and Brahms festivals –
towards a Wagnerian goal. The orchestra’s recent international tour included an
all-Wagner program in Abu Dhabi and the 2017 season has two programs dedicatedto Wagner with concert performances of Tristan
und Isolde planned for 2018. The concert on the weekend featured what was
billed as the Wagnerian dream team: heldentenor Stuart Skelton and conductor
Asher Fisch in a program of Wagner opera excerpts.

Asher Fisch and Stuart Skelton

So
what does Asher Fisch and WASO’s version of Wagner sound like? On Friday 26th
WASO was sounding the most Germanic I’ve heard with vibrato-less woodwind
embedded in the strings and warmed by a thick glossy brass sound. There was also - somewhat surprisingly - a sense
of restraint, of lingering until the last moment so that when the swells of
volume finally arrived they were simply sublime. And thirdly Fisch created a
smooth roundedness through his restful contouring and carefully placed phrase
ends.

With
these aspects at work the Prelude to Parsifal was an exquisitely tailored
masterpiece. The operatic excerpts were also excellent although given the
through-composed nature of Wagner’s operas it was problematic expecting small
excerpts to stand alone; the endings were abrupt and the motivic development
only just underway.

It
was worth it though to hear Stuart Skelton’s artistry. In the orchestral
introduction to Allmacht’ger Vater (Rienzi)
the melody was introduced in the cello section with some gold dust from harps and
horns and when Skelton joined his tenor gleamed like a ray of light. He sang with
rounded vowels, a centred glow throughout his range and seemingly endless
streams of cushioned air. In Nur eine Waffe taugt (Parsifal) he moved easily between Wagner’s lyrical writing and more
animated Sprechstimme, while in Wintersturme (Walkure) his portamentos had an ardent fervour. The dream team was
most evident in Parsifal where the orchestra played equal partner to Skelton
with Fisch and Skelton dovetailing with great attentiveness.

The
second half of the program was taken up with Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, a
weighty sixty minute work even with the fourth incomplete movement left
off. Bruckner’s love of counterpoint was
manifest everywhere with his long melodies supported and sometimes overrun by
countermelodies and various permutations of the theme. From the opening bars
with the languorous climbing phrases Fisch brought a breadth and vehemence to
the orchestral dialogue.

Bruckner’s
organist background was also evident in his sectional treatment of the
orchestra. Fisch emphasised Bruckner’s different ‘organ manual’ approach to
orchestration, allowing space for intimate cameos within the sprawling
landscape. The contrasts between the
pizzicato dance and the pounding chase of the third movement were thrilling. When
the full contingent of blazing brass (including the Wagner tubas) was unleashed
you could hear Bruckner literally pulling out all the stops.

In
the third movement Fisch built a dark intensity into the slow descending
phrases but Bruckner’s wintry Romanticism was starting to wear thin and heads
were nodding in the audience. A full program of late-German romanticism may
have been a bit too much on a hot Perth evening. Still the memory of the
magnificent blended orchestral sound and Skelton’s gleaming tenor will stay
with me a long time.